I’ve been working on analyzing our teams and will share my predictions later tonight. However I first wanted to talk about some of the factors I looked at this time and how I believe they impact the teams.

Total Minutes Drafted

The first one is minutes. As we all know an NBA season is 19,680 minutes barring any OT games and any rounding up of minutes by WIS. Most, if not all of us, also know that the sim gives each player an extra 2% of minutes over the course of the season before any fatigue sets in. SO, how what is the minimum number of minutes we should be drafting?

If you are feeling lucky, and think you can make it through 82 games without an OT then 19,680/1.02 or 19,294 will get you there. Anything less than that and someone on your team will be fatigued by season’s end. However, you can burn one of your scrubs into the ground etc. and likely not have fatigue hurt too much as long as you can avoid OT.

The problem is, it is VERY unlikely that you will avoid OT the entire season. In the DH$52 league that just ended the six teams in my division averaged 19,828 minutes each, meaning you would need at least 19,440 to avoid fatigue. The range was from 19,736 (19,358 would cover you) all the way up to sly’s team that played an insane 19,934 minutes . My own team played 19,894 (19,504 required for cover), but if the sim gives you the “sly” treatment then you need at least 19,543 to avoid fatigue.

Basically for purposes of the eval I assumed that any team with at least 19,500 minutes was highly unlikely to hit fatigue. Between 19,300-19,500 you really start to play with fire scarecrow, and of course the closer to get to the 19,300 end of the spectrum the more likely it is you will get hit by the nasty fatigue genie. Go below 19,300 and it is a mathematical certainty that fatigue will do some nasty things to your playoff hopes and dreams.

Also, three teams actually drafted in excess of 19,680 minutes, for those teams (including my own) I eliminated scrub minutes to derive weighted team averages all based on 19,680 total minutes.

Heading to my kid’s ball game now, will post a flurry of stuff tonight.

This is actually part of the possession battle, but IMO it is important enough to warrant its own category with many sub-categories.

TOV%

Clearly tov% drives turnovers in the sim more than any other component. Again from the DH league that just ended, the league tov% was 14.95%. Since that is a higher cap league IMO we can expect a higher league tov% in the ODL. From my observations the league tov% usually stays close to 15% in the sim. For the current ODL the drafted tov% is 13.90%, so if a team has a tov% above that mark they know they are already behind. Of course not all tov%’s are created the same, and the higher the usage% of the player the more critical his tov% is. Teams here under 13.5% will likely stay below 16% in the sim, teams over 15% in RL are going to suffer a TON of turnovers in the sim.

Steal%

I’ve been looking over a lot of data and I have found that when a team has a weighted average steal% of 9.0% or above that their opponents commit more turnovers sim tov%. 7.5-9.0% usually offers minimal differences, and anything under 7.5% and teams usually commit fewer turnovers against you than is expected. I went division by division and weighed the tov% for all opponents faced and found that a steal% over 9.0% generally means at least a .5% bump for your opponents tov% in other games, in other words if you are over 9% in steal% then an opponent that comes in with a 15.5 tov% in the sim is very likely to have a tov% of at least 16% against you. The opposite is true below a 7.5 steal%, as that same opponent averaging 15.5 tov% is now far more likely to stay below 15% against you. Yes, the numbers seem small, but over the course of a season this can really add up.

RL FGA/g and Possessions/g

If your team did not draft enough RL fga’s or possessions then it is highly likely that one or more of your players will enter into the individual penalty for a given game. The penalty impacts shooting as well, but where it is REALLY noticeable is in the turnover battle, just ask anyone that has seen their high usage player with a single-digit RL tov% turn the ball over 8 or more times in a game, that folks IS the individual penalty. Most of us will be exposed to the penalty if we run uptempo, for example the 12-13 NBA season averaged 79.7 fga per team per game, but the sim usually generates something in the 92-94 fga/g range. IMO, if you draft around 86 RL fga/48 or so, the likelihood of hitting the penalty is reduced, but draft fewer than 80 RL fga/48 and you will see a significant increase from your RL tov% if you are running uptempo.

There are other factors as well, but the above three are quantifiable and were utilized in my analysis.

The FTA Battle

Pf/rate

As some of you know I have addressed pf/rates in another forum. There is a ton I could say here, but in short, I calculated a team pf/rate for everyone. Trust me when I say that the average produced in the sim really seems to hover around .078, that is .078 fouls are committed for every player minute used in the sim, this comes out to a little over 18.7 fouls per game per team, and we usually see the league average between 18.6 -18.8 in the sim. Guards foul less than bigs in the sim, but for the most part if you have a weighted foul rate of .075 or below then you will have an advantage. Conversely the higher you go over .080 the more damage fouls will do to you, and go over .090 and you’ll send your opponent to the stripe 30+ times on many, many occasions.

Draw Rate

I have spent countless, countless hours looking at how the sim decides when a foul is drawn. In general the draw rate in the sim is right around .100, or very close to 24 FTA/g for a league-wide average. I’ve also noted that the draw to foul ratio in the sim always seems to stay very close to 1.28, that is for every foul committed there are 1.28 FTA’s generated.

New way to measure draw rate

After REALLY looking at draw rates I noticed that we might be able to come really close to predicting how many FTA’s a team will take over the course of the season. For these evals I am relying on my discovery, and we can check it after the season. Basically take your RL FGA’s /m and add your RL FTA’s/m, then multiply that combined number by .21. You would not believe how often the sim gives you a total number of FTA’s that is extremely close the 21% of your RL fga+fta. Of course there is variation for things like the pace of the NBA pre-70 and I think there is some normalization in play as well, but as a ballpark estimate IMO this works. So, I have calculated what I believe will be each team’s NET in the FTA battle in the sim by looking at both this number and the team pf/rate for every team.

Often many of us set targets of trying to keep a combined 40% oreb and 90% dreb on the floor, these are very solid target numbers and most of us can’t get our reb% that high either because of other tradeoffs or we just didn’t get the proper players needed to hit those targets. The important thing to remember is that the rebounding battle in the sim is all based on the relative differences between your team’s advanced rebounding stats and those of the teams you face. If everyone in the league has an oreb of 40% and a dreb of 90% then no one has an advantage. And of course if everyone in the league has an oreb% of 30% and a dreb% of 80% then a team with only 35% and 85% would have a rebounding advantage.

This is another stat that seems to produce a very consistent outcome in the sim. The sim usually produces a league wide orb% really close to 28.2% and a dreb% that of course is close to 71.8%. SO, when deciding if one team or the other has a rebounding advantage you simple look at the weighted averages for those teams and compare them. You compare Team A’s orb% to Team B’s dreb% and vice-versa. So if Team A had a oreb% of 38 and Team B had a dreb% of 85 then Team A would have an advantage on the offensive glass (38+85=123; 38/123= .309 which is higher than the .282 the sim usually generates.) And if Team A also had a dreb% of 95% and Team B had an oreb% of 35% then Team A would have a dreb advantage as well since 95+35=130 and 95/130 =.731 which is higher than the average dreb% generated by the sim of .718. Of course individual matchups come into play as well, but this type of comparison gives us a really good idea about which team will win the rebounding battle more often than not.

I have also noticed that when you combine the oreb% and the dreb% of any given team that a total over 125 usually means that team will out-rebound opponents and a total below 125 means your team will come up short in this aspect of the game.

For this ODL the RL league averages are: 36.44 oreb%; 87.06 dreb% and 123.5 combined%. Btw 36.44 is 29.51% of 123.5, which is a little higher than the close to 28% I anticipate will be generated by the sim.

The shooting battle

EFG%

First the easy thing; as we all know the higher your efg% the better. You need a certain minimum ast% as well and at some point enough additional ast% can give your team an efg% bump that produces an outcome that exceeds your RL efg%, and if your ast% on the floor at any time is below a certain threshold then you are highly like to underperform your RL efg% by a very significant amount. The league efg% average for this ODL season is 53.10%. The DH$52 that was just completed produced a league efg% of 53.20%, so I don’t expect the ODL to produce a 53% as well since the cap is $5mill lower, but on paper if your team has adequate assists then you have an advantage if you are over 53% and you are behind if you are below 53%.

Team D

Many of us try to stay above an average team D of 70, some of us go to the extreme and attempt to average 80D or above, but many high D players also bring other things that can hurt your team such as a very high pf/rate, just as trying to go overboard in ast% can result in a team tov% that is off the charts as well. I personally try to stay between 68-72 or above in any league with a cap over $50mill, in the ODL with a lower cap and limited minutes IMO staying above 65 D will keep you competitive and going as low as 60 D is acceptable as long as you never exposure your team to having 3 or more sub-50 D players on the court at the same time, from my own very painful experience in the HDP progressive league it doesn’t matter how high your own efg% is if you try using 3 or more sub-50 D players at the same time, because the other team is going to shoot the lights out and you won’t be able to stop them. The average D in this ODL is 67.54.

Ast%

IMO the assists floor (the point at which if you drop below it your team will take a significant efg% hit) is somewhere in the mid to high 40’s, but could be as high as 50%. The RL ast% for the NBA in 12-13 was only 58.30%, so we essentially KNOW that WIS doesn’t expect us to exceed RL to avoid a penalty. I personally have always been one of those “shoot for 70% ast%” guys, but from recent leagues it really seems that the sim does little to reward teams with a significant efg% bump unless some number north of 70% is on the court. More assists “should” help efg in theory since the WIS FAQ tells us that it does, but IMO the benefits are marginal until your team reaches a certain point that likely costs a tradeoff of either an insane tov%, or you have a team that is way behind in the rebounding battle (or both).

Shooting Range

Spreading the floor is important for a number of reasons and impacts the game and efg% as well. As with everything balance is generally the best course of action. I really keyed on perimeter% as part of the evals for this ODL and will mention it as part of my final post dealing with block% before I release the predictions.

Other Factors

Since we only get about two days between the time we can see everyone else’s roster (expect tang this time of course, thanks again for making things difficult) and the season tipping off there are only so many things that can be considered when evaluating teams and making predictions. Things such as having enough usage to avoid the team penalty and the balance of that usage also play a role here as do other things, but since time was of the essence here I didn’t dig too deeply into any factor that I’m not listing. I did take a brief look at other things, and if there are any glaring weaknesses I noted them.

Block%

This is one that I pretty much ignored until recently but after looking at a ton of new data I believe I may be close to fully understanding what block% in the sim REALLY does and how important it is. Post about this to follow, then on to the evals/predictions.

There may be some variation by league and this is a small sample size but I wanted to share my observations regarding block% from the last DH$52 league. There is some minor variation in the number I am about to explain which may be due to WIS reporting blk% with only one decimal point, I could get more detailed data from another source that could improve accuracy by a little bit, but for now I just want to illustrate this.

First let’s assume that a 3-point shot getting blocked in the sim is at best a very rare if not impossible occurrence, I went through like 20 play-by-plays where a team had at least double-digit blocks and could not find even a single 3pa that was blocked, so it may happen, but IMO the odds are at least 200-1 against. If someone sees one please let me know.

Let’s look at Vance’s team from this past Dh$52. If you take the weighted average of each player’s actual court time in the sim and multiple it by each individual (single decimal though) blk% you find that Vance had a weighted blk% of 8.30%. Do the same for the following people and you find the subsequent weighted team blk% rates: nate 6.03; dh 10.24; and ash at 13.43. So we are looking at four teams that are have a wide range of blk% rates.

Ok, back to Vance, take his 8.30 block% and add 22% to it by multiplying it by 1.22, if we do this for all four teams we have the newly created blk rates that are a 22% bump from RL:

Vance 10.13; nate 7.36; dh 12.49; an ash 16.38.

Next we go to the actual stats from the sim and see how many 2pt FGA’s were attempted against Vance (remember we are assuming that blocking a 3pa is a very rare event) We find that vance’s opponents attempted 7,834 shots against him and that 1,317 were from behind the arc, so Vance’s opponents attempted 7,834-1,317 =6,517 2-point attempts. Next we multiply the enhanced blk% by the 2pt fga; 6,517 * .1013 = 660. So, the formula tells us that Vance’s team should have blocked about 660 shots, when we look at the actual sim results we see that Vance had 664 blocks.

Do the same for me and we get 7808-1328 = 6480 * .0736 = 477 with an actual result of 471.

Maybe the above does not hold up as well across all leagues and this is a small sample, but we may be very close to uncovering yet another way the logic of the engine works. Yes, team D and other factors matter as well, but if this is how the sim actually utilizes blk% then you KNOW exactly what benefit you are getting from it when you draft it.

Importance of Perimeter Game

If you are in a division with teams that have a high blk% and assuming the above is how this really does work, then an obvious counter is to push as many shots as possible out to the arc where they won’t be blocked. However, teams that do end up in a division with high blk% teams that have a low perimeter% will suffer even more than the teams that do utilize more long range shooting.

Anyway, I’ll post all of my tables and predictions shortly, they will not change, but at this point I won’t complete all of the write-ups prior to tipoff tonight.

IMO this is the most stacked division and there is razor thin separation at the top.

1.Share the Ball, eleibowitz. Red Flags: None. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before, Dreb wins championships in the sim and this team has the highest dreb% in the entire league. Yea, eleibowitz did not live up to expectations in the last dh$52 league, but his team in this league doesn’t have the ast% issue that his other team had to deal with. Dreb% of 102.91 is the ONLY +100 dreb in the entire league. And his combined reb% is the only one in the league over 140. There really aren’t many negatives with this squad, D is a little on the low side at 61.29 and that if anything could be a minor issue. 19,504 minutes means little chance of fatigue exposure, efg of 52.1% is just below the league average, tov% of 13.67% is middle of the pack for the league and 3rd best in the division , pf/rate lower than the league average at .075 and this team is expected to have a positive FTA differential. In the end I think the rebounding advantage will be more than most teams can overcome, IMO this team is a title contender.

2.William's Mavericks, theyard2. Red Flags: None. Top D in the division and only team over 70 at 72.52. Also the top blk% in the division at 11.19% and 2nd highest stl% of 7.92. Behind only eleibowitz in dreb% at 97.59, but also has 2nd lowest oreb% of only 35.07. efg% of 51.99 is actually lowest in the division one of only two teams under 52% in the entire conference (the price you must pay for taking Kobe.) Foul rate of .077 is about average for the league but 2nd highest in the division and this team is projected to just lose the FTA battle by less than one full FTA a game. I love the Big Ben/Lucas combo down low and Kobe is great for the ODL. The two main reasons I predict eleibowitz to barely take the division and not theyard are the rebounding advantage and the fact that Kobe is far more inconsistent than Pierce, Marion and Payton, plus when a team puts so much of its offense in a single player, a horrible game by that play generally means a loss.

3.Ol' Dirty Bastard, 98average. Red Flags: None. Lowest tov% in the entire conference at only 12.50% and one of only two teams in the entire league under 13%. Team looks to have drafted close to enough RL fga/48 to avoid the individual penalty most of the time and LeBron and T-Mac reduce the chances for each other of hitting the penalty. Has a FTA advantage of over 3 per game, top oreb% in the division at 38.82%, dreb over 90 at 92.03% and total over 130 at 130.85%. This team should be a nightmare to defend and after looking at all of the numbers IMO it is a solid playoff contender.

4.Saul Goodman, krishnaman. Red Flags: Highest tov% in the entire league at 15.80%, only 73.5 RL fga/m, FTA difference of -6.67, highest pf/rate in the entire league at .097, and weak rebounding . On paper, before looking at all of the data this team looked like one of, if not THE best in the entire league, however this team is projected to get dominated in the FTA and turnover battles and has far too few RL fga’s/g to avoid the individual penalty, plus the rebounding is weak. Top efg% team in the conference at 56.16%, so this team becomes an interesting case study in whether or not elite shooting can make up for getting dominated in other areas.

5.I've Been Here for Years, slymonium. Red Flags: lowest D in the league at 52.05, one of only two teams under 60D and only team under 55D, lowest dreb% in division at 83.35, lowest combined rebounding in division at 119.66. This is the 2nd best shooting team in the division at a 55.38% efg and does not have the turnover issues of krishnaman, but the low D and boards puts this team in the same category as krishnaman, can great shooting offset other serious issues?

6.Lake Minnetonka Purifiers, jhsukow. Red Flags: 2nd highest tov% in division at 14.34%, low rebounding, 2nd lowest team D in conference at 60.73. At least this team has enough RL fga’s/m and should completely dominate the FTA battle at +5.79. Wilt will seriously cruise to the scoring title and this team will be fun to watch, but in a division this loaded I don’t think it will contend.

For the record I predicted that I would finish 3rd in my division and be the #5 playoff seed in the dh$52, and that's eactly what happened. Ash will be tough, but if I look at these factors in a consistent manner then I have to pick myself for the division.

Central Preview

This looks to be a three-way race between my own team, ash, and badja. It should be an interesting battle all season and all three teams are solid playoff contenders.

1.Shuttlesworth's Daddy, natenoy. Red Flags: None. Likely the kiss of death to predict my own team to finish first and I won’t be shocked if I finish behind both ash and badja but if I’m going to be consistent with my predictions based on my statistical assumptions and what results will occur in the sim, then I have to place my team at the top (of course I actually DRAFTED my team based on the same assumptions that I use to evaluate the teams so it is not a surprise that my team grades out well.) Lowest tov% in division at 13.09%, top dreb in division at 95.31, 2nd highest total rebounds at 133.29, top blk% in entire league and one of only two over 13 at 13.41%. This team relies on 3 and only 3 players for its offense, we will see if that strategy is flawed and whether a more even distribution of usage will become a factor in future evals.

2.Ashlanta Mustangs, ashamael. Red Flags: Team D of 61.35 lowest in the division, 19,226 minutes, 2nd highest tov% in division at 14.40%. This is the top shooting team in the division at 55.88% and I would have made ash the favorite if not for the serious fatigue issue risk that comes from only drafting 19,226 minutes. Ash will be near or at the top the entire way, his turnovers will be high and he will be in some shootouts, but the key for him is avoiding OT, if he gets too many OT games early then IMO fatigue will be a very serious issue for him to overcome.

3.Penny & Pau's, badja. Red Flags: 2nd lowest dreb in division at 83,03%. Weak on the boards but this is the 2nd best shooting team in the division at 54.67%. Has players with clean play which means a slight advantage in the FTA battle at +1.15 and 2nd lowest tov% at 13.64%. Minutes are on the low end of the spectrum at 19,324 making this another candidate for fatigue issues if too many OT’s are played. Solid team that will compete for a playoff spot.

4.No Name Team, tang. Red Flags: only team in league under 19k in minutes at 18,996, high pf rate of .088, worst FTA differential in division at -3.14, lowest perimeter % in division at 11.96%. Personally I can’t wait to play tang 8 times as this is a near perfect team to test my theory on blk% against. Tang has a solid D at 74.31 and the top oreb in the division at 41.98. I think this team could start the season in the hunt, but fatigue is mathematically guaranteed to set in, and IMO this team will see a serious fade in the 2nd half of the season.

5.Frack It!!, skypilot. Red Flags: lowest efg in division at 51.08%, lowest oreb at 33.72%. My issue with this squad is that on paper it will both miss more shots than any team in the division AND get the least number of 2nd chances off of those missed shots because of the low oreb. IMO the wrong version of Kareem is being used for this league and I learned the hard way about how little value Lanier offers for his high salary in the DH$52 league, and this league has a cap $5mill lower, so I think sky will learn this lesson at an even worse degree than I did.

6.Defense and Fund, steelers821. Red Flags: 20,145 minutes, -2.22 in FTA battle, highest tov% in division at 15.37%, lowest dreb in entire league at 75.30. Whenever you have a team with over 20,000 minutes in a $47mill cap league either you have a few high usage guys surrounded by 8-9 very low usage guys, OR IMO something went terribly wrong with the way you built your team. The shooting here is pretty solid at 53.95% and this is the top D team in the division at 77.33, so if my assumptions about the sim are wrong then this team could help prove it by performing well and showing that D is far more important than I realize and is able to offset other areas of weakness more than I think that it can. Hey, at least fatigue won’t be an issue.

IMO this division has the best chance to send four teams to the playoffs and the top five in the division should produce a very competitive showing.

1.Meh, felonius. Red Flags: None. May be a shade shy on minutes at 19,291 but makes up for it across the board. League low tov% of 12.01%, 2nd highest rebounding in the division in oreb, dreb, and combined at: 39.85, 92.28, 132.13. Largest FTA advantage at +3.10 with low foul rate of .074. Also drafted enough RL fga/g at 92.4, so combine with low tov% this team should dominate both the turnover and FTA battles. Efg of 52.84% in just below average, but domination in the other areas makes this team the division favorite IMO.

2.F*CK YO COUCH, mikee1. Red Flags: None. Lowest steal% in entire league and only team under 6.0 at 5.97% means this team will not force many turnovers. 2nd best shooting team in division at 53.81%, should compete for the most triples in the league with the league high per% of 25.26%. Top rebounding team in the division across the board at: 39.94, 94.69, 134.63. Also a low tov% at only 13.06% but D is also low at 61.39. Only 79.2 RL fga/48 and slightly behind in FTA battle at -0.45. This team will be very much in the division race, but IMO felonius has enough advantages in the other key areas to offset mikee’s shooting and slight rebounding advanatges.

3.Shoot the J. SHOOT IT, tarheel1991. Red Flags: 2nd lowest oreb in division at 34.36%. A very solid team across the board and the top shooting team in the division at 53.88%. More turnovers, less rebounding, and a slight FTA disadvantage of -0.56 is why I ranked this team below the top-2, however this is a solid playoff contender.

4.Go West Young Man, coachcroft. Red Flags: Highest pf/rate in division at .087, 19,220 minutes. Only D in the division over 70 at 77.43, highest blk% in conference and one of only two in the entire league at 13.0 or more with a 13.00. To obtain a D and blk% this high there are generally tradeoffs in other areas, the fouls that come with a high blk% are present with this squad and the efg of 51.63 is the lowest in the division. All in all I think the D is good enough to offset the slight weaknesses in other areas, IMO this is a playoff contender but this team does have exposure to fatigue with only 19,220 minutes.

5.los3'2, seapilots. Red Flags: Foul rate of .086 is 2nd highest in division, blk% of 5.29 is lowest in the entire league, tov% of 14.78% is highest in entire conference. This team is solid in most areas and should still be very tough at home, but add in an efg% of only 51.92% with the issues in the turnover battle, high foul rate, and lack of shot blocking and I think this team will be pretty bad on the road. Could be in the playoff hunt if it can dominate at home and win a few road games, plus should pick up 8 wins from bottom team in division, so has at least a fighting chance for the playoffs.

6.Not Last Forever, iccoachb. Red Flags: 20,778 minutes drafted, REBOUNDING. Well, on the bright side it would take 44 OT’s for this squad to hit fatigue. Reference what I said about too many minutes under steelers preview. This team will be LAST because of something I just can’t get past: dreb of 59.04%! Oreb is very low as well at 28.86% and combined rebounding is the only one on the entire league below 100 at 87.91%. Ast% of 86.11 will have to take this team’s RL efg from 52.71% to something well north of 60% for this team to have any chance at being competitive, and IMO that is not within the realm of possible outcomes in the sim.

IMO this division is a two-horse or at best a three-horse race that comes down to which is more important: the shooting, defense, and turnover advantages of dh versus the rebounding advantages for vance, or perhaps as a longshot great D and dominance by MJ. It appears that each of the other three teams have at least one major liability to overcome if they want to compete for the playoffs.

1.McHaladooForTwo, dh555. Red Flags: None. Is a little low in dreb at 84.53 has a disadvantage in the turnover battle with a stl% of only 6.54% while tov% is only slightly better than the league average at 13.58%, and is pretty even in the FTA battle at a near coin flip +0.07.However, this team is a contender for the conference title because of conference best 54.16% efg and top-4 D of 73.50. Great shooting, solid D, and no major areas of weakness means dh will be near the top the entire way.

2.Roses & Thorns, vancem. Red Flags: 14.57% tov% is 2nd in division 3rd highest in conference, 19,238 minutes. Top oreb team in division at 38.70, top dreb and combined rebounding in entire conference at 96.87 and 135.58. D is low at 60.27 and aforementioned turnovers are high, but 2nd best FTA advantage in division an +1.44. As with all other teams in the 19.2 to 19.3k minutes range possible exposure to fatigue. Solid playoff contender that needs to win the division to win the title because fatigue in the playoffs would doom this squad.

3.Blue Barons, cmcafeeky. Red Flags: highest pf rate in the conference at .096 and largest FTA deficit at -5.53, very weak rebounding at 33.65, 83.39, 117.04. This team does have MJ, a team efg of 53.93%, a strong D of 76.15 and great blk% of 11.19. The question is can MJ and the D offset getting crushed on the boards and FTA battle? This will be another team that is interesting to watch and really is a virtual coin-flip on whether or not it makes the playoffs, for the purposes of these evals cmac lost the coin-flip but is just outside the hunt and I won’t be surprised if this squad makes a solid run.

4.Wading in a Big Boat, malone9975. Red Flags: lowest D in conference and 2nd lowest in entire league at 56.38, efg is lowest in the entire conference at 51.39%. Malone did give D Wade the 2nd best rebounding team in the division at 38.49, 92.95, 131.44 but neglected to give him any help on defense. I think D Wade will dominate his fair share of games, but the lack of D and low efg will keep this team from seriously contending for a playoff spot IMO.

5.Osmosis Folly, banditone. Red Flags: extremely weak rebounding at: 34.00, 75.57, 109.57. Rebounding is the only serious flaw with this squad but is the ONE flaw that IMO is least often overcome in the sim. This team is pretty much solid across the board in other areas, the value of the 72.37 D is reduced by being in a pretty good defensive division, but this team does have a division best +3.86 in the FTA battle. If this team only had more rebounding it would have been a contender, but IMO without that it simply can’t contend in the ODL.

6.AAA Dyna-Mo' Humm, smokey57. Red Flags: highest tov% in conference and only team over 15.0 at 15.08%, high pf rate .091, loses FTA battle by more than one a game at -1.43, one of the worst rebounding teams in the league at 29.54, 77.13, 106.67, AND to top it all off FAR AND AWAY the lowest perimeter game in the league at 6.94%. Now the good: D is only one in the entire league over 80 at 80.15, steal% of 9.08 will cause other teams to turn the ball over more, blk% of 10.97 is also near the top of the league and 82.40 ast% is best in division. Basically smokey’s theory is that a D over 80 combined with an ast% over 80 is a winning formula for the ODL and you can ignore all else. I have to predict that he is incorrect and personally don’t expect this strategy to work, but smokey has the perfect opportunity to prove me and many others wrong if this team is successful and I wish him the best of luck, because IMO he will need it.

just a heads up... I won an odl with 19k minutes drafted & all of my players in the 97-98 range. Long as you can clinch a division, you are GOLD for the playoffs. But you gotta clinch or you get **** on in the playoffs.

Posted by ashamael on 7/6/2013 5:39:00 PM (view original):just a heads up... I won an odl with 19k minutes drafted & all of my players in the 97-98 range. Long as you can clinch a division, you are GOLD for the playoffs. But you gotta clinch or you get **** on in the playoffs.

yup...ive had a few teams with 19000-19300 mins that did pretty well...but when the starters got to around 97% and even 96% i noticed a drop-off and most teams faded down the stretch...once playoffs hit and i couldnt shorten my rotation or extend starter minutes i had no chance....ash is right...you HAVE to win your division if you want to go that route

Nate you have 7 players with eFG under 52%. Those players took 45 shots against me and made 19. Compare that to other teams like Ash's and mine, who has only 2 under 53%. You also lose the FT battle. Unless you have defense or rebounding that makes up for shooting (which you do not), it will be hard to win a lot of those games IMO.

Posted by badja on 7/7/2013 9:52:00 AM (view original):Nate you have 7 players with eFG under 52%. Those players took 45 shots against me and made 19. Compare that to other teams like Ash's and mine, who has only 2 under 53%. You also lose the FT battle. Unless you have defense or rebounding that makes up for shooting (which you do not), it will be hard to win a lot of those games IMO.

Badja, your points are well taken and whether or not my assumptions regarding shot distribution in the sim are correct will go a long way in determining if this team performs as I think it will.